And I didn't mow de lawn yesterday after all. Oops. I just didn't feel like it so I didn't. Now I'm sorry but it's supposed to stop and clear up later so I should be able to trot around with the mower later. Don't you hate when you do stuff like that? Mostly I didn't because I was listening to an audiobook and wanted to keep listening so I could hear whodunit and be finished listening to the terrible narrator (Ellen Travolta--John's mom?--anyway she had pronunciation and pacing problems but I liked the story so I stuck it out to The End).
I managed to snap a photo of a hummingbird at the feeder this morning. I can't understand why the raindrops don't knock them right out of the air but they ignore the rain. Maybe they fly between the drops?
I did go to give the chickens the peels and floor grapes which they loved. (floor grapes are the ones that fall when I'm taking them all off the stems so that we can just grab and eat) It seemed like the chickens are more of a flock than two pairs, at least they seemed that way yesterday. I'm glad, I don't like it when they fight. But first I give Porter her supper, waited while she ate it (that took some convincing, she's used to me taking her walking), and then we went outside to play. We played ball for a while (she's kinda learned to give it back, at least she lies down and lets it go so I can walk over, pick it up, and throw it again), then I sat and knitted on my car door dishcloth (the project that lives in the pocket of the door for times like that) until she was done with her business so I could lock her back up before coming home to a supper of chicken spaghetti and fresh green beans. Yum. Tonight I plan to grill a couple small ribeyes so it better stop raining or I'll be peeved and no one likes me peeved.
September 15--Belbello da Pavia, Benedictine Antiphonary. The soft echoing chant drew Azalea down the cool marble hall toward the monastery chapel. She had thought that the building was empty but the sound of men's voices with their ringing notes in a minor key attracted her to investigate. As she neared the end of the hall the smells of incense and beeswax reminded her of going to her grandmother's country parish for Sunday Mass. The brown robed monks filled only a couple pews in the small chapel but their voices made the place seem like the vestibule of Heaven.
Today is the Packers' home opener. I hear the announcer and a little music. I'm glad I'm not there in the rain and wet, but then I never want to be there no matter what the weather. I know, I shouldn't live here in football mecca but I can't help it, it's where Dad got a job in 1962 and I've just stayed. Maybe someday I'll live someplace else. But not today.
--Barbara
These photos have moved from next to the kitchen TV to the top of a dresser in this bedroom. Walking by this morning I caught sight of them and realized that, though I love my life right now, I miss these kids. I know that I still have them and that they're absolutely wonderful adults and they call me at least once a week and seem glad to talk to me when they do or when I call them, but I miss them in my house and being busy and noisy and laughing and... and... and... mine. I miss them.
Durwood's first half-bushel of tomatoes has been turned into tomato soup. Ten quarts and seven (one's frozen in a zip bag because it was the end of a quarts batch) pints of luscious tomato soup. Sunny Hill Farm is closed today (they're Seventh Day Adventists) but I'm confident that he'll be ordering another half-bushel tomorrow for next week. There are two dozen (+ two) brand new quart jars up here already and I've only brought up a dozen pints so he's got a ways to go. That big blue spatterware canning kettle was an excellent $3 buy from Goodwill in 1977, wasn't it? We get lots of use out of it. I'm liking this "team" method of canning; he makes the soup and I get it into jars and into and out of the canner. It works and no one's totally exhausted.
Yesterday the drysuit dad and daughter got to the store 2 hours earlier than they thought they would (Cross Country practice let out early--whew!) so we got right to fitting them. It's a workout for me too as I have to help them get into an unfamiliar wad of neoprene and then pry them out. Everyone's sweating by the time we're done. I only had to measure the daughter so the "ick" factor was greatly reduced (it's hard with adult men and all their dangly bits to avoid). They didn't buy drysuits but I think they will. They did spend a bit of money so I felt okay with the transaction. They were lovely people. I think that's why I'm missing DS & DD today, seeing how much fun that dad and daughter had together, and they weren't putting it on. I could tell. Not quite long enough for me to get into and out of the bathroom after they left another customer arrived wanting to be shown an assortment of things and to rent some tanks so I worked right up until the stroke of 7 PM. It was a good thing that I ate my lunch around 4 PM so I wasn't starving and didn't eat supper too late because it was nearly 8 PM by the time I got to knitting. I was out of energy by then and still had soup to can, but got it done AND the dishes washed before I flopped in the chair to do the crossword puzzle. I'm glad I only have yoga, lawn mowing, and granddog feeding to do today.
September 14--Mesopotamia, Figurine. The clay was cool and slick in her hands. She sat on the other side of the willow break from the men digging in the clay bank. In this part of the world men made the vessels and the charms. They drew on the walls and painted stories to be passed on. Women grew food and made garments. Men didn't sow or reap or tan hides. Women didn't draw or paint or make charms. She knew she could make the small talismans better than most of the boys, she felt it in her fingers. So she moved down the riverbank to a place where the pink clay could be dug with a stone tool lashed to a wooden handle. She placed the dripping chunks in a woven basket and went farther from the village where she set bright shells and colored stones in her figures and she pulverized seeds and berries to color her work.
I was so tired that I never asked her name but I like it. I slept until 8 o'clock (gasp!) this morning so all my day is late. Now it's time for Cheerios, a banana, and to read the funnies. Toodles.
--Barbara
I made it. Well, I made it TO Friday anyway, we'll see if I make it THROUGH Friday. It was crazy at work yesterday. I spent an hour not selling a BCD (Buoyancy Control Device, a diver's life jacket sort of thing) to a guy. He's an engineer so he looks at every molecule of things, examines it closely, points out any design or construction flaws, debates size and color and fit. I called one of the Instructors who owns a BCD like it and let them talk. I looked it up on the Internet, found reviews, and read him a bad one and a good one. I hooked up his tank and a rental reg so he could see how it felt that way. I teased and cajoled and patted, told him how good he looked... and he's decided to think about it for a week. *sigh* So I put it aside with his name on it and threatened that I'd take away his discount if he didn't decide in that time. Naturally we also got in 3 orders, nice big cartons of a lot of small items that take time to unpack, organize, put into the computer, tag, and put away. Kind of like Christmas--but you don't get to keep any of it. Then I had to bag up rental gear for a couple students going on their certification dives today and tomorrow. I was happy to lock the door shortly after 5 o'clock, stop at Subway, and go to my knitting guild meeting for the evening.
Today I already know that a dad and daughter are coming in near closing time to try on and get fitted for a drysuit. That means I'll be crawling around measuring strangers, putting my hands on parts of them that I probably shouldn't... oh well, I'm a nice woman, a mom, what could be icky about that? Sometimes I feel like we should be going steady after customers like that. They'd better not take an hour either; it's Friday Night Knitting and working until 7 o'clock makes me an hour and a half late--and hungry. (Maybe I'll take extra food and make a lunch-ish supper so I save money and don't eat at 8 o'clock. That's seldom good.) I'm glad that all I have to do this weekend is mow the lawn and feed Porter so DS & DIL1 can have a run-away to Door Co. for the day. They need the break; they both work too hard.
I asked DS how the chickens are when he and I spoke last night. He said they're all molting so it looks like a pillow factory explosion in there, they're all crabby, and no one's laying eggs. He said they're getting so low they may have to buy eggs. Horrors!
September 13--Jean-Henri Riesener, Secretaire. Chloe was sure that Grandpere's desk was the portal to a magical land. It folded and closed so that it looked like a piece of furniture, like a place for linens, but it was painted black with gold decorations and pictures all over it. On the door panels were birds and flowers, mountains, villages, and stags all looking like they had floated out of a fairy tale. Chloe watched from behind the door when Grandpere opened the doors and lowered the desk. Behind it were little drawers and cubbyholes that held papers and feathers and coins and stamps from all over the world. There were lower doors that opened too but inside there it was black. That was where she thought the entrance to the other world was.
I just realized that it's Friday the 13th. (knock wood) I was going to type "that can't be good" but, you know, I think it just might be a good day after all. The sun's shining, the humidity went away, and the temperature is supposed to rocket up into the middle 60s. Ahhh. And I have to work indoors all day. Wouldn't you know? Later, dudes and dudettes.
--Barbara
I am learning the lure of knitting baby things. Sleeves are fast. I picked up the held stitches and a few in the underarm of the right sleeve of the Rocco Zander Cardi, knit a few rounds at work, and zoom! a sleeve appeared. And that's with fingering yarn on US6 needles. (we all know that I'm not much of a fan of yarn skinnier than worsted and my fingers don't work well with small needles, right?) It isn't that blue, it's more navy with burgundy and pale gold, rich looking. Now I need to think about buttons...Searching on Ravelry makes all permutations possible. I can narrow my search so that it shows me only projects that use the ingredients I like and have on hand. That Ravelry, it's an enabler and a time suck. I can surf patterns and time just passes... it's lovely. Someone should make a site like it for fabric crafts too. Not me, of course, because I know less than nothing about programing but someone should look into it. (Get on that, will ya?)
After I found out last night that this morning's "mixed levels" is more strenuous than the "beginner" that had me sweating last night I thought it'd be smart to take a pass since I would need to go straight to work from the yoga studio, not home to take a shower. Ewww, that would be bad. We have few enough customers (I had none yesterday) without me stinking up the place all day. My friend Z-Dawg came too and remembered how much yoga settles your mind and exercises your body. It was good to see her after so long, maybe she'll come back. And I'll be working all day tomorrow since Mrs. Boss will be off to Idaho to see her mom so no yoga on Friday. But there will be yoga on Saturday. Ahhh. And on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Friday (because I'm not working next Friday) next week too. And of course Saturday because I don't work on Saturday unless the sky is falling and never (nevernevernever) on Sunday but I won't be yog-ing then either. I have to draw the line somewhere, but I'm determined to wring as many classes out of my thirty bucks for thirty days as I can. Some may call it cheap, I call it frugal, also it gets me up and moving so maybe I'm making a habit. That'd be very good, don't you think?
Durwood had another 5 quart batch of tomato soup ready to be canned last night when I got home. He says he's got enough tomatoes for one more batch before he has to buy more tomatoes from Sunny Hill Farm. I know he plans to make more, there're 2 more dozen new quart jars sitting here and there are a blue million pint jars downstairs (at least 4 dozen) just waiting for soup to be pour into their wide mouths. This division of labor is working well; he's making the soup and keeping it warm in the oven (no danger of it scorching on the pot bottom that way) til I get home, then after supper I fire up the canning kettle, get the water near to boiling, heat the lids (oh, I got the handiest gadget last year at the end of the season; it's a plastic stick with a little magnet on the end that picks the lids up out of the hot water so you don't burn your fingers. genius!), fill the jars, and process them for 15 minutes, et voila! tomato soup appears ready for warming him up in the middle of winter.
(man, I'm distractable this morning. I need to get a move on.) I harvested ripe tomatoes from the garden this morning and there's a clump of blossoms on the hummingbird vine, finally, also I found a place to take a sunset picture last night, next to the dumpster in the parking lot behind our house. It has nice elevation so the trees aren't in the way as much. There was even the moon.
September 12--Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Manuel Osorio Manrique de Zuniga. Manny liked birds. He liked them a lot. He had finches in cages and a magpie that his nurse would tie a string on one of its legs and then Manny could fly it like a kite. The magpie liked shiny things. It picked up jewelry and silverware, pens and shiny stones. Manny kept a box with what he thought of as "the magpie collection" in a box under his bed. As much as Manny liked his birds, the cats, Perro and Chat, liked them more. They crouched like furry sphinxes next to the cage, their yellow eyes never leaving the small feather delights behind bars.
Oh, it's nearly 8:30. I gotta hustle. See you.
-Barbara
Monday afternoon Durwood brought home half a bushel of tomatoes and yesterday he fired up the soup factory. By evening 5 quarts of tomato soup cooled on top of the dishwasher. He's taking it one batch at a time, one batch a day, and he should be in the market for his second half bushel by the weekend. I get to help with the actual canning, while he does the peeling and cooking. We're a team. (it's part of my master plan to slurp up more than a couple bowls of his yummy soup over the winter; I figure if I help more I'll get to eat more--mwa, ha, ha, ha)
When I drove across town after yoga class last night the sunset was just gorgeous, orange light splashed across the shredded edges of the approaching storm clouds, but when I was on the bridge (up high) my camera was in the back seat and when I got home trees were in the way so I went into the back yard and another tree was in the way, this is the best I could get. We had lovely thunderstorms from about 9 PM on until I conked out around 11 PM.
I had to wait until all the soup making was finished and the dishes washed up so I had a bit of counter space to make hummus for lunches. This week's version has 10 green olives whirred into it. I'll be toasting sandwich thins (do you eat those? I love them slightly toasted so they're not flabby, they make great sandwiches with a lot less bread) so I can have them open-face (Great-grandpa Gerst sandwiches I called them when I was very little, he was the only person I knew who didn't put a lid on his sandwich, now I know why, because that way you taste the goodies inside) with a smear of hummus, cucumber slices, and halved cherry tomatoes on top for my lunch. Yummo. My beloved Durwood bought me a bag of frozen mango chunks and I had one of frozen blueberries, so I cut up the pineapple I got at Festival (1.98!) and mixed it all together for lunch fruit. (don't you wish I made your lunch too? I know you do.)
September 11--Edward J. Steichen, Portraits--Evening. Edward and Maude stood as still as they could but their image was blurred around the edges. Maude held the print in her hands and thought how amazing it was that the photo had captured them in an instant. Not only their likenesses but their feelings too. Look at Edward with that half-smile playing on his lips. He often wore that superior look as if he were laughing at those around him, at her. She looked sad, like she was sliding into despair, and she knew that she was but thought she hid it better than that. Anyone looking at the photo would see in an instant that they were intimate. Her fingers clenched crumpling the photo and its telltale insights.
Twelve years ago today the World Trade Center was destroyed by terrorists. DS had just gotten home from serving 5 years in the Army and I was terrified that he'd get called back. He thought he would too but never let on. He didn't. *whew* He went to college and met his sweet DIL1, they got married 5 years ago (already!?), and now they're having a baby. All of the people that I love are doing okay, living their lives and working through challenges, just the way it's supposed to be. Just in case I don't tell you often enough, family, I love you with all my heart. You're all my "best babies" even if I didn't exactly give birth to you.
--Barbara
Durwood and I spent a bit of yesterday afternoon poring over maps, tour books, travel guides, and the Internet to find reasonably priced places to stay on our vacation next month. (it's in 3 weeks and 3 days! holy crap!) We called Durwood's brother and sister-in-law for suggestions around Greenville, SC, reminded DD to get us a room in Lexington, KY (she has a contact and mothers nag, uh, remind), and told Aunt B when we'd be rolling in. The closest we could get to Great Smoky Mountain National Park and find a room we can afford was Knoxville, TN which is about 25 miles from the park. That should be okay. We were kind of bummed that there's no lodging in the park like there is in Yellowstone. They need to get on that. The fall colors should be in full glory by the time we get there. In fact, I've noticed the first inkling of autumn on the maple tree in the last few days. As happy as I am to have cooler weather on the way (but not today, it's going to be hot and muggy today) I'm sad to see the leaves start to change.
I probably shouldn't say it but I think my muscles are resigned to the fact that I'm taking them to yoga and making them stretch and work. I'm not quite as achy this morning as I have been and maybe, just maybe, my shoulder's a little better. I'm walking Porter later, I have a chiro appointment at 3 PM, and then I'm going to yoga (again) at 5:30. Hey, I want to wring every class out of my "30 days for 30 bucks" I can. (ugh, hot flash, aren't I over those?)
September 10--Kitigawa Utamaro, The Oiran Yoso-oi Seated at Her Toilet. She wanted the most complex hairstyle with lots of layers and picks. It took so much time they had to begin at noon for her to be ready for her appearance at the dinner at seven. Yoshi felt her fingers tremble as she laid out the combs and the puffs she needed to begin. She carried the basket of pomades and gels along to the dressing area, making sure that there was incense lit. Never pine, her mistress said, pine was too masculine according to Miss Nanki Po. Yoshi was surprised to learn that fragrance had a gender but she was only a poor farm girl, not a sophisticated city girl.
Time to go start my day. Durwood's making soup today, I think, so I need to make sure I get the canning kettle up from the basement for him, and anything else he needs before I run off. Have a ... day.
--Barbara
And I didn't mow de lawn yesterday after all. Oops. I just didn't feel like it so I didn't. Now I'm sorry but it's supposed to stop and clear up later so I should be able to trot around with the mower later. Don't you hate when you do stuff like that? Mostly I didn't because I was listening to an audiobook and wanted to keep listening so I could hear whodunit and be finished listening to the terrible narrator (Ellen Travolta--John's mom?--anyway she had pronunciation and pacing problems but I liked the story so I stuck it out to The End).
